


After The Flood

by Janet_Coleman_Sides



Series: Floodverse [2]
Category: Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman | Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janet_Coleman_Sides/pseuds/Janet_Coleman_Sides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ken and Joe both try to deal with what happened between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After The Flood

_Down and out._

That can be a good thing, when you were previously up a creek someplace...

Spiraling down. "Hey," Joe shouts down to the woman whose weight he's bearing up. "Hey..." Some goon had said her name, but he can't remember what it was... it's hard to concentrate. He's still fucked up... from whatever that was all about... but the ground is coming up quick. "Hey! _lady_...!" No good. She's passed out. Cursing, Joe banks a little, trying to slow the descent. 

He manages to get them both landed all right, if awkwardly -- she, limp in his arms, and himself, staggering for his footing on the unexpectedly solid earth. Not far off, Ken has already landed. 

Joe expects him to come and help, but Ken just stands there.

"Hey!" to Ken this time. "Come help me! She doesn't look too good..."

He lays her out on the ground, and only then does he realize, _She's dead._

Ken's boots approach at last, and Joe looks up. Shakes his head.

"I wonder who she was," says Ken. His voice sounds weird. Flat. His eyes look unfocused -- but maybe that's Joe, who's feeling a little unfocused himself. 

"Never know, I guess."

"I've called Ryu," says Ken. Joe nods. His head feels big and empty inside, the rattle of thoughts echoing. The silence makes it worse. It's creepy when dead people smile.

"That was some... weird trip," Joe tries.

Ken says nothing, looking up into the sky. 

  
***  
  
There are only three ISO doctors with KNT clearance -- two medical, and a shrink. Of the medical docs, Joe likes the woman better -- she has a sense of humor -- but it's the guy on duty today. He's not a _bad_ guy, just kind of fussy and too formal. He reminds Joe of Nambu sometimes. 

"I'm going to need some blood from you today, Lieutenant Commander..." They already got him to piss in a cup.

Joe just extends his arm. "Help yourself." 

He's always blasé about it. But he never actually watches the needle go in.

By now he feels pretty normal -- relatively speaking. He and Ken waited a couple of hours for Ryu, and then it was another couple of hours back to Crescent Coral. They'd ended up a long way from the car show, that was for sure.

_How did they get us so easy..._

The doctor changes out tube after tube from the needle in Joe's arm, lining them up in a rack. They're gonna need a lot of tests. But apparently, he's had a lot of drugs. 

_Can't remember..._

Then the needle is withdrawn and the doc is pressing cotton down. Joe bends his arm.

The tests and questions start to blur for Joe. Pupils, pulse, blood pressure... how does he feel? _Tired_. More than anything, tired...

"...can't clear you to leave the base until we've got some idea what you've been given..."

Well, duh.

Ordinarily it'd piss him off, but right now Joe doesn't care, the bed in his base quarters will do just fine to crash on. And it's a lot closer than the trailer. 

"...come back in the morning, results should be..."

"Fine..."

He clears out. To his surprise, the hall outside is empty.

_Where the hell is Ken? Did they already get his blood?_ Joe hadn't been able to answer any questions about what happened. Ken probably hadn't either, but Ken usually hangs out after a debriefing... talks it over a little. It's strange for him not to be here.

Maybe he's still in with Nambu -- but no. "Commander Washio went home," Nambu's secretary tells him.

Well -- shit.

_What happened?_

What don't I remember?

Too tired. Joe moves like a zombie to the residential deck, almost falls through his door. The bed seems to rise up to meet him. 

Down, and out.

Come morning -- at least, it's supposedly morning, how the hell can you really tell way down here -- they let him go. He can be back in practice tomorrow. _Hoo fucking ray! Practice!_

  
***  
  
Ken's avoiding him. Joe can't catch him anywhere, not at the base, not at the J, not at his house. 

_Ken killed that guy -- snapped his neck before even asking him any questions. What the hell happened?_ It certainly wasn't just because the guy had shot at them. Joe was only surprised he hadn't shot more than once. 

_What happened? That's all I want to know..._

Ken's phone is disconnected again, of course. It's been "temporarily disconnected" so many times Joe is sure the recorded voice is sounding weary of it all. 

_All I remember is we were chained up. He's not freaked out about that, is he?_

The bracelet is the last thing to try, and when Joe finally caves in and tries it, Ken doesn't answer.

Joe gets annoyed, then disgusted. Well hell, he spent a little too much time in Ken's company anyhow, apparently... If Ken doesn't want to be around him, he'll find somebody who does.

  
***  
  
The girl is kind of drunk already when she starts talking to him, leaning against the bar and aimlessly kicking at the legs of her stool. She's been smoking, but she's out of cigarettes, there's a full ashtray and an empty crumpled pack beside her. 

She lost her job today, apparently. She keeps saying she's glad, but she's angry, you can see it in the way she moves. Joe likes this about her... her anger. He doesn't have to smile. 

And it's easy to say the right things while not really listening. He can nod, grunt, say "Bastards." It makes her smile and buy him another Wild Turkey. 

"You lost your job today." Joe raises his eyebrows. "Shouldn't I be buying _you_ one?"

"I don't mind buying a guy a drink. ... _You_ can pay for the hotel room."

He thanks her... and keeps an eye on his glass. No one will be drugging him without his permission again. Ever.

  
***  
  
Her aggressiveness turns him on. They yank the nasty shiny cover off the hotel bed and toss it aside, then fuck until the sheets are twisted into a sweaty knot underneath them. Once. Twice. Now going for the hat trick.

It's good... Real good, but third time around even _he's_ gonna get a little tired... he slows down for a moment, wiping his sweaty hair out of his face with the back of his arm.

She claws at his shoulders, panting. "Oooooh, yeah, Joe... More!"

Yeah... yeah, more. He's not dead yet: he's got more. 

"More... please..." Legs around his waist. "Joe, _more_..."

He's trying to catch his breath. It's hot in here... Her words echo somehow... 

"Joe, _please_ , more..."

His spine snaps taut. 

Her writhing body transforms, hardening... _tightening_... underneath and around Joe even as he thrusts.

_Cell. Chain. Heat. Ken._

Even the scent filling his nose and mouth, no longer perfume but an irresistible musk like sweat and sunshine and --

_'More. Please, Joe. More.'_

tight-hot-lunging-sweating-screaming......

"Ahhh...!!"

A moment ago -- it was pretty good. _Now_ \-- fire slams through Joe's body, like lava boiling in his veins -- ! The feeling, the moment, whatever it is, it takes him, takes him with it... burning...

He does not exist, there is only this moment of white heat and hard rut, desperate, grappling, straining,

_More! Joe!_

"AHHH!"

_Yes! More! Yesyesyesyes!!!_

_Howling and coming so hard, **so hard!!**_

Subsides, shaking... down in darkness.

Joe returns to himself in bits and pieces, hearing a voice say very close to his ear, "Ohh... wow... you are so _amazing_..."

_Huh..._

Who...

Oh.

_Oh God..._

A minute or so later, "Mmmm. Don't suppose you have any cigarettes..." Her voice is hoarse.

Joe's sitting up at the edge of the bed. He shakes his head silently. 

_What the fuck was that..._

"Oh well. Oh, honey, you're something else, that last one just now was fantastic, just out of this world..." She sighs, smiling, closing her eyes.

_...where the fuck did that come from..._

He reaches for his pants.

_Have to get out of here._

He'd been looking to relax, to blow off a little steam, but now things are a thousand times worse. 

_What the fuck happened up there...._

Is **that** why Ken's avoiding me?

  
***  
  
Terrific. Not only is it _practice_... not only has Joe not slept all night... but it's something they've never done before. In _zero gravity._

Joe fucking hates zero-G. Even on his best day, which this emphatically is not. Weightlessness... _spinning_... leave him out of that. Ken is probably used to it from some of those jets he test pilots, but -- 

_Ken._ Joe flushes, invisible guilt rising to the surface. 

That moment... that crazy moment... that couldn't have been real. _Just the drugs... not all the way out of my system... weird reaction._

That's all...

But Ken is still avoiding him. Joe doesn't even glimpse the white birdstyle till they all meet up with Nambu. And even then Ken seems to look everywhere but at him. 

"...prototypes aren't ready yet," Nambu is saying. "In the meantime you can practice microgravity combat in standard birdstyle with the wings detached..."

What? "How is it birdstyle without _wings_?"

"As I've just been saying, Joe," sighs Nambu, "the space birdstyles can't have wings. It doesn't make sense."

_Space birdstyles. Galactor is kidnapping people from car shows, and we're busy in training to kill goons in space._

  
***  
  
They aren't really going into space, just the newly completed zero-G arena -- but it's so big, and occupies so many decks of CC, that walking to it through the long corridors and wide doors (five abreast) is weirdly like the scene in that astronaut movie. There ought to be slo-mo, and a soundtrack. Well, some soundtrack other than Jinpei:

"How come we're calling it zero G when it isn't really zero? Hakase said 'microgravity'."

"'Cause 'zero' _sounds_ cooler. Why else."

Ryu is probably right, Joe realizes. The whole idea reeks of some big military jerkoff's idea of 'cool'. All they've got to go on are 'rumors' of Galactor planning some space platform.

"Hey, yeah. And 'micro' sounds like we'd be zapped all small and injected into somebody. We oughta do that! We could be like a virus and kill Berg Katse." The kid is all excited.

"Hush, Jinpei," says Jun, "Don't give anybody any ideas. _Nobody_ is shrinking _me_."

Now it's a new movie. 'Honey, I Shrunk the Team'. -- But Joe is with Jun on this one. Christ, that's all they need!

All the while Ken says nothing. Nothing at all. Walking faster, he draws ahead. Joe eyes his back. 

Then another group of Get Smart doors cycle open, and they get a look at the machine.

...It's big. -- They all saw the specs on Nambu's screen, but that's not the same thing as _seeing_ the sonofabitch. It _looms_. It's round of course, and so big it seems to have its own _horizon_.

"Holy fucking shit," says Joe, and his voice seems very loud in the echoing chamber, "that thing belongs on the fucking Death Star." Ken does not react to what Joe says _or_ how he says it. It's like he doesn't even _hear_ him!

No, Ken just looks up at the thing for a minute, like he's met it before but he can't quite remember its name. Then he takes off his wings and sets them aside, and the rest follow suit; Joe last, reluctantly. 

Birdstyle looks so different without the wings. All of them seem half naked with them removed, but nobody more so than Ken, in his white.... like it's painted on... 

Then down a catwalk (this has a lot to do with the Death Star feel) and into the arena. Joe follows behind Ken. _You have to look at me! You have to talk to me!_ he thinks furiously at the back of Ken's head, but the angry imperatives apparently bounce off the helmet, because Ken does neither.

There's ordinary gravity in here right now. Stretching up around them, ledges, ladders, and walkways -- with a vast open space in the center. Everything as gunmetal-grey as primer.

"Aww," says Jinpei when they enter, "I thought it'd be on already..." 

"They have to seal it up first," says Jun. "You can't just step in and float."

Ken walks around a ledge to the far side of the sphere and starts climbing a ladder. Jun makes an impressively wingless jump-and-flip up to a little perch with a handhold. Ryu pushes Jinpei, who stands gaping upwards, and they split up and move up off the floor. No one has told them to, but the space is so big it seems dumb to all clump up in one spot. Joe moves to the wall -- within reach of a handhold, and within eyeshot of Ken.

The doorway they came in through slides shut, like a big eyelid. Unseen machinery all around them powers up, humming deep enough to vibrate in Joe's bones, and then a klaxon sounds. They're about to turn the gravity off -- or turn the weightlessness on. Same difference. 

_Hang on, everybody,_ Ken should be saying, even though they already know that, already are. _Here we go._

Then all of a sudden, Joe's arms are floating up -- no -- all of him is, and his stomach lurches unpleasantly, even though he was ready for it to happen. You just can't really be _ready_ for one of the fundamental laws of your universe to be switched off. Up and down. The sensation of your own weight. Stuff you take for granted.

He grabs too late for the handhold, missing it, and floats up. "Dammit..." He grabs for another as he floats by... snags it and holds on. His legs float up despite efforts to remain upright. 

_Well, Nambu had a point about the wings, I guess._

Above and around him, the others are exclaiming with surprise and laughing -- except for Ken of course. Ken has himself braced against a ladder so that he remains decorously upright. 

"Aniki, this is so great!" Jinpei yells, not specifying which 'aniki'. Probably Ken, then.

It takes a few minutes to acclimate. But soon they all begin to get the knack of using the ledges and ladders, even the walls, for leverage, and launch into the big open area. Jun glides with uncanny grace in this environment, and Ryu, once he gets used to movement, is almost as good. Jinpei just can't stop fooling around. Joe grimly concentrates on learning quickly enough not to look stupid. 

Ken... of course Ken does this like he's done it all his life. 

In space, they'd have to have thrusters to get around outside, but in an enclosed area like this that would be way too much, just as it would inside a station or ship. 

But at least if they had _thrusters_ , they wouldn't end up wallowing in the middle of an empty space with nothing to push off of... _shit!_

"Hey! Joe aniki's stuck!"

"Shut up!" But it's true. Joe is floating all by himself down toward the bottom of the sphere, slowly rotating from his otherwise ineffective movements of arms and legs. _Shit! Shit!_ Joe can swim well, but this isn't water. It's just air. And there's nothing to push off of.

_I hate this shit!_

Most especially, he hates being _laughed at_. Jinpei and Ryu are both calling down, "Swim Joe!" and "Try the breast stroke!" 

"Oh, leave him alone" -- Jun, making it worse.

As he revolves back toward them, scowling, Joe catches sight of Ken.

Ken is moving through a series of _kata_ , each motion smoothly blending into the next. He too slowly rotates, but there is nothing out of control about it with Ken. His arms and legs move like he's dancing in midair, unsupported by anything but grace.

Then Joe's own motion turns him around and he can't see.

"Do we haveta rescue you, aniki?"

"Don't worry Joe, you can just hang there till they shut it off and drop you on your head." Huh huh huh.

"Will you two _stop?_ ...Joe, _do_ you need help?"

That does it. Joe draws his gun.

Firing the gun kicks him back a little bit, but the suction grapple arcs out and sticks to the grey wall with a _pop!_ He holds down the switch to reel himself in on the line.

_Hah! **Now** we'll see a little contact force. _ He flies through the air toward the wall...

Um, toward the _wall..._

SLAM.

"Joe!!"

Ow. Maybe a little _too_ much contact force. But now he's got a handhold, and suddenly those two aren't laughing it up anymore. Joe's mad enough now to get the hang of this weightlessness thing real quick. 

It's just free fall, after all.

Once both of them are spinning loose in the middle, Joe hooks one foot under a ladder rung and looks around panting and grinning, ready with a snappy answer for Ken's expected rebuke.

He's closer than Joe realized -- just above/below... but he wasn't watching at all, he doesn't notice Joe even now... absorbed in motion, in the meditative _kata_ , Ken twists and dances in the air, muscles flexing and relaxing over and over, as plainly visible through the white birdstyle as though he were naked, grappling an imaginary -- 

\-- Opponent... 

Joe finds himself staring -- transfixed, at the lines of Ken's body arching, reaching, writhing... 

_Writhing..._

A sigh breaks his reverie; Jun, off to his left, is also taking in the view. Intent on the vision of Ken, she doesn't notice him.

Joe scowls at her dreamy stare. Then it strikes him that he was just doing the same thing, staring slack-jawed... 

Now Ken seems to come out of his dream -- his motions slow, and so does his turning. Sure enough, he comes to a stop right side up, and within reach of a handhold. 

"OK, team," he calls out, not looking at anyone, "we're all used to it now. Let's get started."

Even Ken's voice, raised loud enough for them to hear, sounds distant somehow. 

And that's how it is throughout the rest of the practice. Ken is here but not here -- when Joe spars with him he's almost surprised at the solidity of the arm that blocks his kick -- as if he expected it to pass through a hologram of Ken. 

_Where are you, goddammit?? What happened? Why are you like this?_

Not only are there no answers, there's no way to even ask any questions. After the klaxon sounds and they all grab onto ladders, weight comes back and then the arena cracks open with a Godzilla hiss. And Ken is down and out, gone before any of the rest of them can reach the floor.

Joe intends pursuit. But Nambu neatly collars him in the hallway. "I'd like a word, G-2..."

_Oh, fucking hell, what is it now!_

It's a lecture. About the sore subject of Not Listening. It's not a very effective lecture, Joe's not listening now either. But it prevents him from going after Ken... _Dammit. He'll be miles away by now..._

No point hurrying now. May as well wallow in the shower awhile. Joe thinks the water from CC's desalination modules smells a little funny but... you can't argue with a neverending supply of hot water at high pressure. Not when you're aching from a little too much contact force with a very hard wall.

He walks into the locker room... and stops short. 

_Ken._

Ken, just out of the shower. Towel, around hips. Hair, flattened down with water, clinging to his neck. Water, still steaming, dripping down his back... Joe's eye is drawn to follow...

_What's that? Bruise?_

As if sensing the touch of Joe's gaze on painful flesh, Ken turns toward Joe, hiding the livid marks on his back.

But he's standing in front of a large mirror. And Joe can see perfectly what Ken is trying to hide...

An angry-looking bruise on Ken's lower back, a few days old, going purple and yellow around the edges of black-and-blue.

The distinct imprint of a chain. Bruised into Ken's back.

_Chain..._

Ken struggling underneath him.

"-- **Now** what!" 

Underneath him. Ken arching up and freeing the chain. It got trapped under him when Joe turned him onto his back --

Onto his back -- arms open -- Looking at Joe like -- 

OHHHH --

"Willing -- I'm willing -- "

hotsweettightsaltloveyousorryohgodoh

more PLEASE! JOE!

JOE! GOD YES! JOE!

Joe's mouth hangs open, his face gone numb with shock. The memory -- it _is_ a memory -- hits him like a Molotov cocktail in the center of the chest, fire spreading over him in a sheet. 

It happened! There's the evidence bruised into Ken's skin!

_Oh Jesus Christ, I did that, I did that to Ken!!_

Their eyes meet. Joe stands paralyzed by the look on Ken's face. 

He can hardly read it, there's too much there -- pain and accusation, bitterness. Shame. 

_oh God. oh God._ All of a sudden Joe can't seem to get his breath. He can hear his own heartbeat shuddering in his ears. 

Joe is about to bolt -- about to turn on his heel and _run_ \--

\-- when their bracelets go off. The beeping echoes almost scream in the profound silence of the locker room.

Ken's face changes. Joe can watch it happen, going still and cold, the pain masterfully hidden so that Joe cannot see it even though he knows it's there. 

"G-1," says Ken to his bracelet, his voice quiet. "Go ahead." He turns away from Joe, reaching for his clothes, no longer attempting to hide what Joe has already seen.

  
***  
  
The mission goes all right, considering. Considering Katse got away _again_. Considering the turmoil, the utter lack of _connection_ between him and Ken just when they need it most. Something as simple as eye contact at the right moment -- but their rhythm is off, and eye contact practically impossible. Joe's head is still ringing from the unexpected intensity of the flashback.

_It was just the drugs,_ Joe thinks desperately at the back of Ken's head, _that's all, don't you realize that?_ But whichever of them he is trying to convince, his attempts bounce off the helmet again. He tries to keep his mind too busy to show him the memory of that shadow-shape of the chain on Ken's back... and fails spectacularly. Knowing it's there, it's like he can see it right through the birdstyle.

When they get back, Ken disappears. No surprise there. Joe takes the shower he got cheated out of before, then slouches into Medical, because they won't let him leave without a 'follow-up'.

"Well, hey there," says Dr. Nasar, with a grin. "What can I do to you today?"

He shrugs. He's not in the mood for verbal sparring -- now he wishes it was the other one, the stuffy chibi-Nambu guy. Nasar knows him too well. 

She's pretty good about taking a hint, doesn't push him. Rather than perisisting she calls up the chart onto her screen, "Oh yes. The ol' mandatory follow-up, eh? Well, don't worry, I won't keep you long..." 

He looks away from the needle as it goes in. She's pretty good at that too though, he hardly feels it. He glances over to see if she's really done it. Oh yeah. She has. He looks at her necklace instead, same one she's been wearing for as long as he can remember, his eyes following the links of...

_...the chain._

As she changes out tubes, Nasar quizzes him with the standard list, "Headaches? Vision problems? Tightness in the chest...?" He shakes his head to each one, taking the lift of her voice in a question mark as his cue to say 'No'. 

"...heartbreak of psoriasis...?"

_Aw, shit_. That one's a joke one, she knows he isn't listening. He blushes.

"No."

"Well, good." 

She finishes with drawing his blood and starts on the pulse and pupils and other stuff. Then she looks him in the eye.

"Personally, I think you're fine. We've gotta run the tests again to make sure, but everything you were given was short-onset, short-term. It's all out of your system now."

Well, great. Joe could have told her that. "What can I say. Clean living."

Nasar snorts, arching one eyebrow. "Come on, now. _You?_ I'd believe that from Ken, _maybe_. But then, _he's_ not the one who got all shot up with wacky-juice." She turns to the blood vials, sticking labels on each one that say whose blood and what for. 

It takes a second.

_...what?_

It takes a second to sink in. What she said.

_What??_

Nasar hums tunelessly while she labels the vials. 

"He..." His voice seems to come from somewhere else outside of him, like he's his own ventriloquist's dummy. "...wasn't drugged...?"

"No," she turns to look at him with surprise. "No, of course he wasn't. Didn't you know?" 

Joe's face apparently answers for him. He can't quite move. He can't quite _think_.

_...Wasn't...?_

"Huh," she says, "that's odd. Well, you did report memory loss. I just didn't realize you guys hadn't talked about it. Thought you guys told each other everything." 

He just shakes his head, silently. Talked about it? Like they've talked about _anything_ \-- with Ken _avoiding_ him -- 

His train of thought derails with a horrible crash.

_oh my god he **wasn't** \-- ?_

"Well, I'm about done torturing you," she says briskly, typing something into his chart. "If you're quite sure you haven't got the heartbreak of psoriasis I guess you can go."

"Thanks," he mutters, and flees the room. 

  
***  
  
When Nambu's secretary sees him coming this time, she anticipates him. "Commander Washio should still be on base somewhere if you're looking for him, Commander... he's got a briefing with Nambu Hakase later on." (She's one of those who abbreviates 'Lieutenant Commander' to 'Commander', like in the Navy, or on Star Trek. Joe likes that. It's like being rounded up.)

But he hardly notices it today, because all of a sudden he's not sure if he wants to find Ken or not. Not in the showers again, that's for damn sure. 

He _wasn't drugged._

_'Of course he wasn't. Didn't you know?'_

He remembers the look Ken gave him, and shudders. Now it is worse, the accusation much more clear in hindsight.

_Where **is** he? _

Joe hasn't been over this much of the base since the infamous jogging-all-over-the-base incident. In fact, he's covering _more_ of it this time, since he never actually finished it last time...

However, he has walked past the place where Ken is _twice_ before a flash catches his eye -- from the observation window. Fighting a sinking feeling, he looks in and down.

What the _hell?_ They haven't used this arena in a year and a half! How many of those old fighting drones did he haul out? _All_ of them, looks like -- the ones they'd used to practice killing blows, back before they got plenty of practice with those in real life. 

_What the hell is he doing, right after a mission, and he's gotta deal with Nambu later --_

_Jesus, that's **too many!** _

Joe realizes, that really is 'all of them'. And it's not just the number of them that's horrifying him, but that they're also all armed with shock blades. Light flares in the observation window like a storm is raging in there, but whenever the lightning strikes, it's striking Ken.

_What the hell is Ken trying to **do?**_

Punish himself. That's obvious enough! 

_But... **why?**_

Ryu's voice next to him makes him jump. "Joe?" 

_Goddammit._ "What!"

"Um, have you seen Ken...? Hakase is looking for him and he's not answering his bracelet..."

Joe turns to look at him. Ryu is not Nambu's usual message boy. But then, he doesn't usually need one, because Ken usually answers.

"He's down in there." Joe jabs his finger at the observation glass. 

Ryu looks in, gulps in amazement -- then horror, as the window brightens again. "Are those _shock blades?_ What... what's going _on_...?"

Joe ignores the question. "Do me a favor. Get him out of there."

"But Joe..."

"Get him out of there. Before he kills himself."

"...but he'll kill _me,_ " mutters Ryu.

Joe doesn't stand around having an argument about it. He walks away. He doesn't want to have to answer the question that has to be coming next, _why don't you stop him, he'll listen to **you**..._

He can't go in there, because he's suddenly -- Afraid. That _what he did_ \-- that sick, _wrong_ thing he did -- is what's making Ken act like this. That it was that act of rape -- which is what it _was_ , it doesn't make _one fucking bit of difference_ whether he was drugged or not -- that Ken is trying to kill over and over in that room.

And, Joe thinks bitterly, _he'd_ had the blessing of being high as a kite when he did... _what he did_... so his memory is sketchy and distant at best, just -- sensory fragments. But Ken... _Ken wasn't drugged_... there was nothing at all to protect him from --

His mind won't go there. He has to get out of there. He doesn't want to think that there might be more, that he might have done even worse -- if there could _be_ anything worse -- and not remember it at _all..._

Even as he's leaving, his mind's eye keeps showing Joe the view down into the arena. Ken: vastly outnumbered, getting himself electrocuted -- a little bit at a time. 

_Ryu will get him out. Nambu can shut off the power..._

Back in his car, back on dry land, Joe goes through the motions of his often-interrupted life, feeling like he's moving through a dream. If the G-2 ran on regular gas he would have run it dry already, just wandering the roads for hours. He doesn't know where to go. He doesn't know what to do.

He keeps remembering what he saw, what he heard in those fragmentary moments. He keeps _hearing_ Ken say those words... and somewhere in Joe's mind, two halves just won't make a whole. Ken _wasn't drugged_. He knows that now. And he's obviously dealing with some pretty serious rage about what happened. Joe ought to know rage when he sees it.

But he _also_ knows the sharp difference between a willing partner and one who's just going through the motions, and while he knows, in his logical mind, that Ken was only trying to _(God!)_ make it easier on him by not fighting him, what Joe is seeing in his fragments of memory is a far cry from simple non-resistance. But that makes no sense. No sense at all.

_"I'm willing_..." he'd said. Joe can hear it, clear as if Ken was saying it now, low but distinct, breathless, right next to his ear. 

But...

...what did that _mean?_

  
***  
  
Ken's body jerks as he is shocked again. Still he jumps away, looking desperately to track all of his attackers, but sweat is in his eyes and he misjudges the speed of the one on the left. 

_Hit me again, go on._

He moves as though to avoid them, but he has made that impossible, there are far too many even for him, and he has given them all the advantages. He has no weapons. 

_Hit me._

They oblige him, that's their program. Another shock 'blade' gets close enough to strike him, and when he jerks back he bites his tongue, tasting blood. He's numb on that side for a moment, and he staggers, but though he wants to be hit, he must still fight them. He can't just stand here and take it -- or they'll shut themselves off.

Foot, fist, foot lash out, and three of them would be dead if they were human. Instead they go inactive. For three seconds. While the others rush in.

When two manage to tag him at once, he can _really_ feel it. He cries out. The copper taste in his mouth intensifies.

Then one of the drones lands a blow on his lower back, criscrossing that aching bruise, and suddenly none of this is working at all. He can't blot it out, it's only making everything worse. Ken whips around and 'kills' the blank-faced drone. It revives in three seconds. 

There's no forgetting that look on Joe's face. Ken will never get away from it as long as he lives. 

Joe _remembered_. And that _look_...

That slack-mouthed, sickened look, the _horror_ in his eyes...

The look Ken hoped never to see -- the look that sees to the heart of him and knows him for what he is, and mirrors back the revulsion Ken has always feared. The look that says, _I know your secret now_ , and _I can't believe my best friend is...is a..._

He can't even think the word. He's hidden from it, denied it for so long. 

How bitterly ironic, he thinks, that he now can feel such nostalgia for the days before that cell, before he finally got what he'd wanted so very much for so very long. The sweet agony of his unrequited passion for his second now seems like paradise compared to what has replaced it... that look, that _look_ in Joe's eyes... 

And far from making that agony better, their one experience has only made it far, far worse. Now it's not just a fantasy any more. He knows... he _knows_ what it's like to hold him, to touch him, to feel him. And he also knows how it is to be hated by someone he loves more than anything in this world. 

_It's not fair._

Yes, he'd thought that back in the cell, too. But it hadn't made any difference then and it won't make any difference now. 

As he pants, tense and ready to jump again, the knot of drones closing in on him pause. No... they stop. They all stop, and Ken, frozen too for the moment, stares at them.

It's like the stasis cell again... blades upraised like the aborted bullet hanging in the air. 

A door cracks open behind him. Ken whirls, teeth bared, arm whipping up to block. 

Then he lowers his arm.

Relief. Disappointment. Pain. _It's not Joe._

"Ken," says Ryu's worried voice. "I'm really sorry. But Hakase wanted -- "

_Hakase...?_ Ken summons up the chronometer inside the helmet's heads-up display -- and winces. 

On top of everything else: He's late. 

  
***  
  
It is hours later when Ken finally reaches the airbase. He should be tired, and yet he cannot hold still, as though he is still twitching with aftershocks. Perhaps he is. But not from the blades.

_Joe knows. He **knows**._

And if there had been _any_ lingering life to the fantasy that Joe might have meant any of the sweet things he had said in the grips of delirium -- its corpse lies bleeding on the floor in the locker room now.

_He didn't know who I was. He never knew. He thought I was... some girl._

Ken, pacing through his living room, whirls and punches the door frame, hard, so that the old dry wood crunches and his knuckles split and bleed. 

But this does not work any more than the shock blades had. Physical pain doesn't work. It doesn't blot it out.

Now Ken can ask himself that question. _Is it better to have loved... once... than never at all?_

NO!

_No!!_ Because it's _not enough!_ It's _worse_ than nothing -- knowing he will never feel that wild kiss, those arms around him, the incredible, forbidden heat -- _not ever again_. But he felt it once; and he must remember it forever. 

Just like he will remember forever the way Joe looked at him in the showers. The horror in his eyes. The revulsion. It's over now... everything's over, even their friendship, which he had cherished so dearly as the best possible substitute for what he knew he could never have. Because Joe knows, now. He _knows._

He clenches his fist, for a fresh wave of hurt from his knuckles. 

Ken opens the fridge, feeling a desperate thirst for oblivion. There's a whole six-pack -- Well. _That's_ something, at least. 

He pulls out the whole six, frees the cans from the plastic ring, and lines them up one by one on the counter. Six ought to do it, on an empty stomach -- to drink till he doesn't hurt anymore, till he can sleep.

One. Two.

Three...

Four...

Five and six remain standing on the counter, sweating with condensation as the door clicks shut.

  
***  
  
The rainbow neon of the beer signs in the window are the only clue as to what sort of bar this is. 

The dimly-lit space is loud with repetitious music and has about thirty men in it, some of whom are dancing, but the dance "floor" is so small that no more than four or so can precariously fit. Still, those brave four or so are sweating energetically, and Ken, standing frozen just inside the door, averts his eyes from their gyrating.

Four beers' worth of courage got him here, but they're suddenly not enough anymore. 

All his life he's been trying to hide from it, to keep it from being true; and, too, it has always been Joe he wanted so badly... not just any male he finds attractive. Besides Joe, he doesn't even know what kind of male he does find attractive... if any.

But... he's never been stirred by women. Not ever. 

So it's this -- or nothing.

He tried to tell himself for a number of years that he wasn't really... it was just something special, exceptional, a karmic bond between him and Joe, that that explained how it had been for Ken from almost (but not quite) the day he met the boy that became the other half of him. But even unrequited, especially unrequited, it could be allowed... The light of day put an end to that fragile, night-blooming vine... it became a cold hard chain. Branded, as an extra karmic joke, as a _memento_ , on his back.

He couldn't just endure this misery. There had to be... some plan of _action_ he could take. So, flushed with beer, he had come to the conclusion that a haunting experience must be blotted out with another experience. (Even though he...of all people... knows better than that.)

He's tense, as though for battle. He knows it the instant one man separates from the knot of dancers on the dance tiles to approach him. Unable not to, Ken sizes him up, out of the corner of his eye: Galactor? assassin? spy? Or just... a guy who likes the looks of him?

Ken honestly can't tell, for the life of him, whether he himself likes the look of anyone here...

"I know the look on your face," says the shirtless, sweaty, grinning blond. He's maybe a little older than Ken. "Drunk enough to get here... not drunk enough to dance?"

Ken doesn't know a pickup line when he hears it, and blushes. _Is it so obvious..._

"I... came here to drink. Not dance."

_I don't know how to do this._

But the other man smiles, as though what Ken said was witty. "Well, c'mon, tiger. Maybe one'll lead to the other." And Ken finds himself being pulled toward the bar, and bought a drink.

The bartender smiles at him as he pours. He seems to like the looks of Ken too. Or is that just because he's -- fresh meat? He remembers Joe's story, and never loses sight of his drink. 

He has planted himself at the end of the bar, back to a wall, where he can see the door. Long habit. 

The blond is a swimmer, and it becomes apparent that he didn't remove his shirt to dance; he wasn't wearing one in the first place. He is proud of his lean-muscled body, leaning against the bar, 'casually' flexing and lounging. 

Yet -- he is a real blond, so pale that he's pink all over -- his hair seems almost translucent. And his face, even in the midst of turning on the charm, has a smirky cast that can turn to sulky in an instant. 

Ken grips his bottle of beer as a shield. The blond keeps calling him 'tiger' and tugging at him to dance, but there isn't enough beer in the entire world to make Ken dance.

"All right, lay off already, Max," says the bartender after Ken's third steadfast refusal. "You tried to change his mind. He doesn't wanna dance. Now behave yourself or you'll get thrown out again."

Max whines, then marches back to the dance floor to resume gyrating. Ken lifts a grateful glance to the man behind the bar.

"Thanks."

"De nada." The bartender gives him a crooked smile. Indicating the direction the blond had gone with his head, "Not your type?" He's older, dark hair and eyes. Not handsome, but... even so, more attractive than Max. 

Max... is about as attractive as Berg Katse.

Ken shakes his head silently. Then he nods to the offer of another beer as the empty bottle is taken away. 

"I'm not surprised. You've obviously got a lot on your mind. Max there... has no mind."

Ken laughs a little. Just a little. The freshly opened bottle is set down before him, and he takes it up, feeling its coldness sink into his palm. 

The bartender says, "My name's Jim. What's yours?"

Ken hesitates. _Should I...?_

Jim says gently, "You _can_ make one up, if you want to. But it's apt to get awkward later, when you forget to answer to it."

"It's Ken." 

Jim gives his crooked smile again. Ken wonders, _Now what do I...?_ but then the song changes, and all the dancers crowd around at once. Jim is kept busy opening beers and mixing drinks for the next little while. Ken watches him, vaguely. Then at the other end of the bar Max starts ostentatiously making out with one of his fellow dancers. Ken turns his attention to the finish on the bar top.

When he finally comes back he asks, "Another one, Ken?"

Ken hesitates. "I haven't paid you for the last one."

"It's on me."

"Why?"

"I need a reason?" Jim shrugs one-shouldered, as he plunges a rack of pint glasses into the bar sink. "You look like you lost your best friend."

These words, after a paralyzingly numb moment, hit Ken like five hard hammers right in the solar plexus.

_you. lost. your. best. friend._

He is too drunk by now to be able to hide the look of shocked hurt that slaps itself across his face. 

"Thanks for the drink," says Ken in a tight voice, and gets up to leave, swaying a little.

"Wait. Oh, crap. I'm sorry. Wait..."

Jim reaches across the bar, fingertips just reaching Ken's left shoulder. Ken pauses unwillingly, turns his head to look at him. 

"Sit down, Ken. Have another beer. You shouldn't drive and you know it. I'll give you a ride home when I close the bar."

The dark eyes, warm and pleading, are nothing like Joe's. Ken nods slowly, and sits back down.

A little while later, during a lull, Jim comes back. "You OK...?"

Ken nods. 

Jim takes a long swig of his Coke. "I... lost my best friend, too," he says, eyes down on his glass. "There was an accident." 

Ken doesn't answer. _I'm sorry_ sticks in his throat. 

Jim asks, "What happened to yours?"

"He found out," says Ken. He doesn't even mean to say it out loud -- but there it is, and Jim looks up, meeting his eyes in perfect understanding. No more needs to be said, after all.

_I can't do this. I can't go through with this,_ Ken realizes. Jim is... too nice. Too understanding. Ken came here trying to be a _body_ , not a person... He'll accept the ride home, but that's all. 

  
***  
  
But Jim gets a call on his cell phone about a half hour before closing time. "I have to go. An emergency," he says apologetically to Ken as another man takes his place behind the bar; "will you be all right?"

"Of course," says Ken, who knows something about being called away by emergencies. "I'm fine."

But he's _not_ fine. As he sits there, back to a corner, nursing his last free beer of the night, Ken's eyes move vaguely over the other patrons of the bar. 

He sees two men talking -- laughing, and eyeing each other. One is leaning against the wall, arms crossed like Joe always does, and suddenly Ken is _angry_ , so angry!

_What am I doing here!_

He knows what. Jim's kindness had almost derailed him from his purpose. 

_Get it over with. Before you lose your nerve._

But who...? Max is still here, but still unthinkable. 

Anyone. What does it matter? Anyone will do.

His wandering eye stops suddenly, snagging on the gaze of someone else looking straight back at him. 

A big guy. A tough guy. Unlike the unexpected connection with Jim, there is nothing warm or sentimental about the look on this man's face. Undisguised lust; and arrogant certainty, _You want me._

Ken feels his face getting hot. Beer? Nerves? Anger? It's impossible to know.

_You'll do._

Ken gets up, leaving his beer on the bar, and walks over to him, feeling at every step the weight of a certain chain. 

  
***  
  
There are no names. The guy doesn't offer his, or ask for Ken's. 

"In here...?" The bathroom. Hardly romantic, but Ken wasn't really looking for romance.

The guy shrugs, _Where else,_ then starts to reach for him.

"Lock the door," says Ken. The guy raises his eyebrows. But he locks it. 

Ken leans against the wall, gasping, eyes shut as the guy yanks his pants down and sucks him. He's drunk enough that the world spins with his eyes closed. A stranger's mouth latches onto him, greedy and demanding. 

When did he get hard? He doesn't know.

Then after a minute of confusion he is bent over, gripping the edge of the sink. Tense and awkward, he tries to relax... Tries not to think. 

"This ain't your first time, is it..."

"Almost," says Ken, hoarsely. He hates having to speak at all.

"Huh, a looker like you..." 

That is the end of conversation. 

Ken is drunk, but not so drunk that he can't feel everything that happens. When the stranger's cock is buried inside him he closes his eyes... and his mind tries to jump to the one and only time he's felt this, with Joe --

_No._ He forces his eyes open again. He can't afford to remember, to feel Joe now. Retreating into that one and only memory is the _last_ thing he should be doing.

But his eyes keep closing. And each time his eyes close, Joe comes back. Inside him. Again and again Ken must try to drive him away -- with this. This sordid moment. 

There is a distant, percussive sound. Someone banging on the door.

"Get lost!" yells the guy, not breaking his rhythm. "Can't a guy _fuck?_ "

Ken's knuckles whiten on the sink's edge.

_I have to do this. I have to._

Toward the end of it, Ken finds himself staring into the mirror in front of him. His eyes are wide, the color of his face hectic, and he can see the man behind him, plunging and growling, and -- and -- the horrible part... the _really_ horrible part... is when it feels good, and Ken starts to come.

He squeezes his eyes shut, bites his lips.

He'll never be able to look into a mirror again. Ever.

  
***  
  
Joe's at another bar, and there's another angry girl sitting on the next stool -- a little weepy, this one, because her troubles derive not from a lost job, but an asshole boyfriend. 

Rebounds are fine for Joe. Rebounds are _good_. He's not exactly 'boyfriend' material, after all. Looked at in a certain way, he's a natural, necessary link in the chain --

Bad thought. Move on.

But just before closing time, just when he's getting somewhere -- a guy comes striding in who is clearly none other than the asshole boyfriend, by the way she swivels toward him before he's even made it all the way through the door. Rebound aborted; she walks out clinging to the guy's arm as though nothing ever went wrong. And leaving Joe as though he hadn't been trying all night for a bounce in her court. 

But... despite himself... he doesn't really mind so much after all. She was cute enough, but then... so was the last one. 

_More. Please, Joe. More._

He has a couple of shots before last call. One more for the road. But now he's too drunk to _drive_ on the road... even he knows it. He's gonna have to sober up for awhile... even the G-2 can't drive itself. More to the point, Nambu has made it abundantly clear that Joe had better not _ever_ get caught DWI.

So, he walks out as the bar closes, and watches as the cops, circling like buzzards, begin to pounce on their drunk prey. The blue Nissan stays in the parking lot; Joe walks down a couple of blocks to get a cup of coffee at a gas station, then wanders into the only open place to sit and wait -- the 24-hour laundromat.

There's a sallow old lady lurking in the back behind a counter, and she glowers at him meaningfully from beside a NO LOITERING sign before returning her attention to a magazine.

It's chilly tonight. He's got a jacket on. It doesn't really need washing, but Joe takes it off and tosses it in a dryer, shoving a quarter into the slot. It'll give him something to watch anyway, while he waits for the cops to give up on the lone, sleek blue car remaining in the bar parking lot. 

Joe sips his coffee and stares at the random shapes made by the jacket as it tumbles around and around. It's not very good tasting coffee, but it does the job of waking him up a little. 

After about ten minutes or so, someone walks in. 

Joe sees her first out of the corner of his eye. _Hooker_ , his brain helpfully supplies. A girl in very, very little, with flashy jewelry and a lot of makeup.

Joe wonders briefly about the old lady and the sign, but the hooker doesn't seem to have any plans of loitering. Calmly, as though it's a perfectly ordinary thing to do, she steps out of her panties and throws them into a washing machine. 

Yikes.

As she sits down to wait, Joe suddenly thinks, _That's not a woman._

She crosses her legs, jiggling one spike-heeled foot, and then just as suddenly, he's not sure.

She's dressed like a woman, she looks like a woman -- but there is some indefinable sense that keeps him doubting it. Somehow she does not quite _move_ like a woman. 

Just when he makes up his mind that it's a man in drag, though, she leans forward on her elbows. 

Those... are real tits. 

...Rather nice ones, actually. There's no faking the way they almost spill out of the tank top.

A woman, then.

But...

_But..._

No, he's _still_ not sure. Yes, there are those breasts. But her wide rhinestone choker (visibly missing some stones, so that it looks like a mouth missing some teeth) covers her neck, obscuring the place an Adam's apple would be if she _were_ a he. 

Despite himself he's more and more curious. _What **is** she?_ Maybe... _One of those, whaddyacallems... both... hermaphrodite?_

_\-- Nah._

Maybe, that other thing? This one he really doesn't remember the name for. A guy who got a sex change?

He can't suppress the involuntary shudder at the thought of anybody chopping it off on purpose. Ever!

" _What?_ " she demands suddenly. Her voice is very loud in the high-ceilinged room. The old lady does not seem to care if they shout at one another as long as they are customers; or perhaps she is deaf.

Joe starts. He's been staring. 

"Nothing," and he drinks some of his coffee, for something to do. It tastes rather bad by now.

She, if she _is_ a she, reacts with rather feminine (to Joe) defensive anger. "Don't call me _nothing!_ "

"I didn't. You said _What_ , not _What are you looking at_."

She blinks. "Oh. That's right." The voice is husky alto -- but he's heard real women that talked like that. He just can't be _sure_.

She's staring back at him now, speculatively. But even if he _were_ certain of her gender, 'actual hooker' is not something Joe is apt to go for. Maybe it _is_ more honest than spending the same amount of money on food and drinks to get a girl into bed... but still. At least you get the fun of the chase. And the thrill of victory. Paying a hooker is like riding a pony being led around on a rope. Sure, you still get to _ride_ , but... 

"You're cute," she decides. "What's your name?"

First of all, Joe is _not_ cute. Not _bad_ looking -- but not cute. Second... _What **are** you?_

"Joe," he says. Almost a grunt. He is not flirting.

"I'm Tracy."

Joe nods. Sips his crappy coffee.

"Why don't you ask me, Joe?" she says. "I know you're dying to."

"Ask you what?"

She snorts.

This is annoying. Now he doesn't _want_ to ask. But shit, he still wants to _know._

A cop car rolls slowly down the street. The buzzards are still circling. 

Staring into the tumbling dryer, watching the helpless jacket twist and flail in the heat, is a little too much like the contents of his head lately... right down to the spin. Joe was drinking to try to get away from it, of course, but apparently he hasn't drunk enough. He's still conscious.

"Lemme ask you something else," he says abruptly. Maybe a hooker would know. It's kind of in her department... and... She's a complete stranger, he's never gonna see her again. Even sitting like this, a few chairs apart and facing the same direction, is like being at a bar. Or a confessional. 

"Sure," she says after a moment, her own curiosity engaged now, and the eyebrows she raises are another doubtful detail -- plucked in a carefully meticulous, old-fashioned way, that girls don't usually do anymore. "Fire away."

Joe turns his eyes back to the hypnotic revolution of his dryer. He's sitting with his legs apart, elbows on his knees, hands dangling between them.

"Well..." he begins, and pauses, hanging his head. Then he sort of shakes himself all over and says, "Say... you did something... Bad... to somebody -- something that really hurt them." 

"OK..."

"But," hastily, "you didn't _mean_ to. You were just really fucked up at the time -- and not even on purpose. And -- they _know_ that. And won't even _blame_ you, 'cause god forbid they be _unfair_." His fists are clenched now. "Even though what you did is _so fucking awful_." 

Tracy is silent, listening. She's looking at him solemnly. She has makeup drawn Egyptian style around dark eyes. It gives an illusion of wisdom. But here she is, _whatever_ she is, washing her panties at 3 in the morning, how wise can _she_ really be?

Joe's tongue is halfway numb and loose with alcohol. The old lady back there really must be deaf, she shows no interest whatsoever in her customers as long as there are machines running. Maybe she can feel the vibrations through the floor.

"But they won't -- _call_ you on it." Joe shakes his head emphatically. "And..." It makes the world joggle and sway -- the laundromat at least. "And -- you just wish he _would_ \-- so we could get this _over_ with..."

Deep sigh. He doesn't realize he slipped a pronoun.

"So... you _want_ \-- them to be unfair...?" she says, in a voice more gentle than she's used yet. 

"No..." He wants Ken to _hit_ him! So they can _fight_. And things can go back to how they were...

The washing machine in front of Tracy spins to a halt, and a buzzer sounds. In the back, the old lady looks up sharply from her magazine. 

"Tell you what," says Tracy, "I'll give you my best advice, if you'll give me a quarter. I hate asking that old bat for change."

"Psychiatric help, twenty-five cents?" he says wryly, digging up another quarter from his pocket. He leans forward and hands it to her. 

"Thanks." She gets up, demurely tugging down her tiny skirt to maintain the mystery, and taking the panties from the washer, tosses them into the dryer next to Joe's. After starting it, she turns and sits again, this time right next to him. 

"OK," she says, leaning forward again, and his eye is instantly, irresistibly drawn to her cleavage, "this person -- is a friend? Someone you care about."

He nods. 

"Your best friend?"

"Uh huh." His shoulders hunch up defensively. He doesn't wanna go into detail -- he's not _that_ drunk!

"Well -- you've got to talk about it, then. There's no getting away from what happened, if it's your best friend..."

"Talk! He -- won't even look me in the eye..." Joe finishes on a mumble, turning brick red as he hears himself this time, saying 'he'. 

She shakes her head with a jangle of earrings. "He doesn't have to look you in the eye, Joe. He just has to listen. Talking about it might not make it better, but not even trying will definitely make it worse."

Joe is silent, absorbing this slowly. The dryers spin slightly out of sync, and the floor seems to tilt slowly this way and that under his feet. 

"One more thing. I don't know what you did, and I won't ask. But I have a feeling -- if you talk to him -- if you make him listen -- he will forgive you. And then you could forgive yourself... right?"

Slowly he nods. If it really is possible for Ken to forgive him... 

The dryer with his jacket in it tumbles to a halt, and the buzzer sounds. 

Joe doesn't even have to look up to know the old lady is staring at him -- it is exactly like the sensation of a laser sight's red dot crawling over his skin. 

He gets up, opens the dryer, and takes out his jacket. It is very hot, and the metal buttons burn his hand. But once he puts it on, the heat of the fabric soaks into his arms and back in a way that feels very good.

"Thanks," he says to Tracy. "I gotta go."

"You're driving already...?"

He shakes his head. "Nah, not yet. But I'm gonna walk for a while... I got a lot to think about." 

She smiles, leaning back, and crosses her legs. "As for the other question, that you're too much of a gentleman to ask: If you ever wanna find out... come see me." 

He meets her eyes briefly with a wry grin, and a nod. Then he goes out into the night -- that is, the early morning. The warm embrace of his jacket slowly fades as the autumn wind penetrates the fabric. He welcomes the cold though, it clears his head. Clears the fog, that is -- It does nothing about the turmoil. It roils on, step after step.

By the time he gets back to his car, the convenience store a few miles up the highway is already brewing early breakfast coffee -- _good_ coffee. He gets one for himself -- and then another one for Ken. An apology of sorts for coming over early in the morning -- because exhausted as Joe is, he isn't gonna be able to sleep until they settle this. 

  
***  
  
"KEN! Get your ass up, I brought coffee."

There is silence from the back bedroom, but Joe knows he's in there. 

Joe can still barge into Ken's house without compunction, but where he might previously have just gone in there and hauled Ken out of the bed, he now stands in the living room bellowing down the hall.

"C'mon! I know you're awake, goddammit."

He paces around the living room, sipping his coffee, then when he turns back to the hallway Ken is standing there, silent as a ghost. Joe's pacing stops short. 

"Holy shit! What happened to _you_...?" 

Ken looks god-awful, haggard and pale, eyes red-rimmed. He flinches, whether from the light or from Joe's voice or what, Joe can't tell. 

"Nothing," Ken mutters, eyes averted. "I couldn't sleep."

Well, there's an opening of sorts. "Me neither. Here, I got coffee..."

"I just _got_ to sleep," says Ken, not taking the proffered cup. His voice is very hoarse. "I'd like to get back to it."

"Not till you talk to me." Joe's own voice seems very robust making this pronouncement, as though he somehow, miraculously, knows exactly what he's going to say.

"No." Almost a whisper. 

Joe's not taking _that_ for an answer. "Ken -- !"

"I. said. NO." There are hardened steel bands under the bruised-sounding voice after all. " _You_ don't come barging in here, waking me up and giving _me_ ultimatums. Go home!"

Far from being deterred by Ken's harsh tone, Joe brightens. _Fight now? Fight?_

But no. Not exactly.

Ken turns his back. "I'm tired. There's nothing to say. Get out, Joe. Go home."

And he walks back down the hall without another glance at Joe. 

"Goddammit!" Joe shouts at his back. "What do you want from me? Ken! Stop acting like you don't know what happened! I know you weren't drugged -- !"

Ken goes still for a moment in his bedroom doorway. _That's it,_ thinks Joe, his blood already buzzing in anticipation, _he's gonna come back this way and beat the shit out of --_

SLAM.

That's all.

The door between them, and not another sound from Ken. 

Joe stares at the dark oblong of the closed door, fists clenched, heart pounding with adrenaline. He'd been so sure Ken was about to hit him. 

_Why won't you hit me!! What do you **want** from me?_

On his way out, Joe slams the front door hard so that Ken's house shakes on its foundation. He flings himself into his car in a rage, pulls away as noisily as possible.

Goddamn Ken! That's what Joe gets for trying, huh...

And -- for fuck's sake! he forgot his fucking coffee too.

  
***  
  
Jim can hardly believe it when he sees Ken come back into the bar, two nights later. He hadn't been sure he'd ever see him again, but here he is -- lingering in the doorway for a moment as the blue eyes scan the bar's occupants. After a short pause the tall, lean figure squares his shoulders and marches in. 

Jim had felt bad, running off like that after promising Ken a ride home, but there was nothing he could do... Dad had fallen down drunk in the courtyard again, fighting off anyone who got near him, and Jim had had to go and help him up, placate the neighbors, and apologize to the police when they finally showed up. Dad had cursed at Jim, too, even as he got him back in the apartment, cleaned him up and put him to bed. 

Jim bitterly regrets the lost opportunity, too, for a few minutes' conversation with Ken that couldn't be interrupted by orders for drinks. 

It's a much quieter night tonight -- that had been a Friday, and this is Sunday. (It's possible Ken was here last night -- but Jim doesn't work on Saturdays.) The bar is almost never empty of customers, but for once at least Max isn't here. 

Serving up some margaritas and collecting a meager tip of the change, Jim edges over toward the wall end of the bar, wondering what to say when he speaks to Ken. He has not forgotten the hurt in those dazzling eyes, the hollowness in Ken's voice as he said, _He found out_. A river of sorrow, and Jim had blundered into it with careless precision. He mustn't do it again.

Ken comes back to the same corner barstool, the surveillance seat. Best seat in the house for checking out the action, except of course here behind the bar. A place for watching your back.

Jim, drying off a pint glass, watches Ken sit down. Ken's not drunk this time -- not yet. His body language is... Interesting. Graceful. Cautious. Someone not to be messed with -- and yet those eyes, those big blue eyes can radiate sudden emotion that could tear your heart in half. Right now they are veiled.

He puts the glass down and walks the rest of the way down to Ken's end of the bar, throwing the towel over his shoulder. "Evening, Ken. Beer...?"

Ken nods. He leans one elbow against the bar, sitting perpendicular to the bar so that his back literally is against the wall. His forearm, tanned, is muscular, veins standing out a little even at rest. He's wearing some kind of stylish watch on his left wrist, so he must be right-handed.

Jim reaches down into the cooler, hauls up a bottle and smoothly knocks the cap off against the opener mounted on his side of the bar. Flip... _chink_ , the cap lands in a big shining jar of caps up on a shelf. Two points! If only anyone at all had been watching. 

He tosses down a coaster and sets the bottle down on it. The moment he has released it Ken picks it up, takes a long swallow. He has already put money down on the bar, so Jim makes change, but only charges him half, without ever mentioning it.

"Sorry I got called away the other night," says Jim, finding things to do at this end of the bar. There isn't a whole lot. But there's always something. Wipe off the bar. Empty ashtrays. Arrange lime slices. "I guess you got a ride OK though." 

Ken nods again, but his shoulders are hunched up a little now. He busies himself drinking his beer with grim enthusiasm.

_Crap. Not again._ Jim has a talent for saying the wrong thing, exactly the wrong thing that hits some invisible-bull's eye. It seems to be a bartender thing. He hardly ever does it when he's not at work. But then, he doesn't really talk to many people when he's not at work. And he has always said the wrong things with his dad, all his life. 

Just once, Jim would like to be the guy who says the _right_ thing. Just to know what it's like...

But especially, he'd like to say the right thing to Ken. He'd made him laugh just a little, the other night... 

He tries to think of something, if not brilliant then at least _harmless_ to say, but fate intervenes: one of the regulars ambles down the bar to try his luck with the blue-eyed newcomer, planting himself on the next stool, blocking off all competition. He buys Ken's next beer. Jim doesn't give a discount this time.

About an hour and a half of clumsy flirtation ensues, which Jim can't help but overhear. The flirtation is all on the other guy's side; Ken says maybe ten words altogether, and once he's had a sufficiently medicinal amount of alcohol, agrees rather curtly to leave with him. 

Unbelievable. _Him?_ The first guy who asked? And of course the blunder in referring to Ken's 'ride' the other evening is obvious in hindsight. _Oh, please not Max._ But... carrying that river of sorrow, why is he so willing? Jim doesn't understand it. He can't stop thinking about it. He's so new at this, that's obvious. _Does he think this is how it's supposed to be?_

Doesn't he realize he could have anyone he wanted, absolutely anyone...?

He catches himself thinking this and, with a feeling like the relief of catching a knife by its handle and not its blade, is glad he has not said it aloud to Ken. Maybe not... _absolutely_ anyone. There had been such bitterness in the phrase _He found out_.

_Trying to forget?_ Maybe. He is a bartender; he certainly sees his share of guys bingeing after a loss. Jim had done his best to drink a river when Andy died. It hadn't brought Andy back. But it's one of those things you have to go through in order to know. Advice is supposed to be a bartender thing, but Jim knows how useless it is. He's better at listening. And noticing. 

The rest of the night is dull, but Sundays generally are. Neither of the pair of them come back to the bar that night, but the next evening Jim overhears gossip from the usual culprits, one of whom is friendly with Ken's lucky date of the night before. 

"I hope New Guy shows up tonight, I'd like a chance at that."

"What do you mean 'New Guy', who's that this week?"

"The _new_ guy. The blue-eyed guy that left with Bill last night. The _hottie_. I don't know his name. Come on! You know who I mean. He looks like a cross between Keith Partridge and Superman." 

"Ohhh! _That_ one! He's gorgeous. Doesn't talk much, though...?"

"Oh honey, who needs to talk when you look like that."

"So -- come on, how _is_ he? What did Bill say?"

_I don't wanna hear this..._

But of course, Georgie needs another drink before he can go on running his mouth, and Jim is called over with vodka in hand, so he can hear exceptionally well as he pours a round of vodka martinis. Which, naturally, will be paid for by anyone but Georgie.

"Well -- Bill said he's got a body like an Olympic gymnast."

"Oh ho ho. I'd like to be _his_ pommel horse."

"But what is he _like?_ "

"Oh, basically Bill said he's a lot of work, if you know what I mean. Just kind of lies there."

"Hey, he can 'lie there' for _me_ any old time."

"You can do pretty much anything to him, though, that's what I heard."

"Really!"

"Yeah, Bill said he'd just go along with whatever he wanted."

"Oh, that lucky bastard..."

"I knew he'd love it. The pretty ones always do." This is accompanied by an appropriately rude hand gesture that leaves no one in doubt as to what is meant. 

Jim feels a throbbing in his temple as he rings up the Gossip Party's drinks. The cash register is an antique, infuriatingly slow. 

"But that's not all! I heard from Max..."

_Oh crap, I **don't** wanna **hear** this..._

"...the other night him and one of those biker guys locked themselves in the bathroom for a while."

"Max did?"

"No, stupid! _Blue eyes_ did."

" _Really_..."

"...Wow. I guess there's hope for _anyone_."

"Well. _Almost_ anyone." Georgie glances up at Jim and smirks. 

Jim turns his back and moves away, his stomach clenching in anger, and thereafter becomes conveniently deaf and blind when certain people are signaling to him for refills. He idles at the other end of the bar, wondering about Ken.

_It doesn't add up_. What he's heard, and what his instinct tells him about the man he's spoken to -- though only briefly, it's true. _For him to be passive like that. For him to be... easy like that._

What is he trying to do? 

...Punish himself?

That had, after all, been what Jim had really been doing, after he managed to get Andy killed. Not trying to drown his sorrows, but to drown _himself_ in them, and take grim satisfaction in the things he did to himself. He'd drink himself to sickness, to passing-out, but not for one moment did he ever forget.

A little while later, maybe forty-five minutes, some indefinable sense prompts him to glance at the door. 

Ken is back.

Neither drunk nor completely sober: he's got a couple of beers in him, judging by the faint flush on his face. But not really impaired yet. 

Although his body language is growing more easy and familiar with his surroundings, his eyes are exactly as haunted as that first night. Maybe a little more so. It's hard for Jim to be sure. 

But Ken certainly doesn't look like he's having fun, even once he's drunk.

As a matter of fact, he's showing up at almost exactly the same time each evening, like he's reporting for duty. You could set your clock by him. 

Jim has had time to think of something to say. He busies himself wiping off the bar in front of Ken and setting down a coaster, saying,

"Hey Ken, before I say something stupid again... let me just say that that offer of a lift home -- " (he does not say _ride_ this time) " -- still stands, whenever you like."

"Thanks," says Ken. He nods to the silent offer of beer. As Jim sets down the bottle Ken says with a rueful smile, "But I haven't heard you say anything stupid yet."

"No?" Jim lifts his eyebrows.

"No."

"Huh," says Jim, stalling for time. He's generally good at bar banter. But this is not bar banter. Not to him, anyway. "Well, I -- guess that's a compliment."

"It is," says Ken.

Their eyes meet.

And then -- of _course_ \-- about six people at the other end of the bar want margaritas. Frozen margaritas. With Cuervo. And salt. And of course the lime wedges are no good and he's got to cut up some more. But _finally_ \--

"...and a Long Island Iced Tea," says Georgie, shoving himself in to put his elbow on the bar. 

_You son of a bitch._ Now Jim is down here he can't ignore an order. Five kinds of liquor -- plus sour mix and Coke. Well, at least it doesn't involve the blender, he'll be back to Ken in just a minute... Almost done...

But, as he grabs for the bottle of triple sec, Jim sees one of Georgie's friends -- the schmuck with the gesture -- go sauntering down Ken's way with two of the frozen margaritas.

His chance slips away in front of his eyes, and the schmuck slips away with Ken.

_This sucks._ He shoves a rack of glasses into hot soapy water. _I'm on the wrong side of the bar._

But he can do something about that.

  
***  
  
"He hasn't been here all week," says Jun.

_Well, he's gotta eat sometime._ Joe is sitting at the bar at the Snack J, stomach growling but unsure what to ask for, if anything. He's doing his very damndest not to keep turning his head to stare at the door. Jun's got sleigh bells on it, he'll hear it if it opens.

It doesn't open.

It's not like the Snack ever has a whole lot of customers, but it's been closed so often this past year (thanks to _guess who?_ ) that what few there were have faded away except sometimes at night, on weekends. It's mid-afternoon now on a Thursday. The ceiling fan pushes lifeless air around the dusty mirror ball.

He saw Ken this morning at practice -- but once again there had been no chance to even get near him, let alone talk about anything. Back in zero G, now with an obstacle course and a time limit. Joe bruised himself pretty good under his arm against one of the barrier edges, but has refused to do anything about it, even look at it. _Contact force._

He thinks about Ken and his shock blades. 

Thinks about Ken... constantly. 

"You look like shit," says Jun, as usual a bit more blunt when Ken is not around. "What's the matter?"

"Haven't been sleeping much lately," Joe mutters.

Well -- he does a little, but when he does, there are the dreams... _Stop_. He _doesn't_ want to think about this in front of Jun. 

But the memories can't be contained, and not-sleeping only seems to strengthen them. Ken, writhing in his arms, crying out. Ken tight and hot and sweet and panting in his ear, _more... Please, Joe..._

"Want a sandwich?"

"Sure." He's not sure he can eat it -- his stomach is as tense as the rest of him, like a cat on a wire. But it'll get Jun away from him for five seconds. As she goes into the kitchen to tell Jinpei, he finds himself glancing at the door. 

_Stop that._

"It'll just be a minute," Jun says, coming back in through the swinging door from the kitchen. "Want a beer?"

"Yeah." That, he's sure about. "Thanks."

It's just the watery draft beer, but it's free. She only puts the sandwich on Joe's tab. There are a few perks to actually paying your tab once in a while. 

And that thought, like all thoughts, leads back to Ken.

Joe hunches his shoulders, eyes down and away from her face. If she only knew. _God._ His stomach clenches tight at the very thought, and he puts the pint glass down on the bar.

"Why don't you just call him?" she says gently. 

"His phone's disconnected again." Well, maybe it is. It was last week, anyway. 

Jun sighs. "You know what I mean," she says, lifting her wrist briefly in illustration. 

He shakes his head, stubborn if nothing else. He tried it already, anyway. He picks up the pint glass again, for something to do, something to skulk behind. 

Jinpei comes out of the kitchen with a big sandwich on a plate. "Joe aniki! Have you seen Ken?"

"Nuh uh." Why can't everybody just _leave him alone_ about Ken... 

Faced with the sandwich, Joe is suddenly sure he can't eat it. And the beer tastes like shit, no wonder she's giving it away...

Then the sleigh bells jangle as a draft enters the Snack. Everybody turns to look.

It's Ryu.

"Hey, everybody. Anybody seen Ken?"

_Ken_. Fragments of both of their voices. ... _give them what they want... don't let me do this..._

Christ, he's hearing things now, he's exhausted. _Gotta get out of here._ Even if Ken does show up, there's no possibility of talking here, what was he thinking... He gets up, and without another word to anyone, goes to the door to jangle the bells again. 

Behind him he hears Jun say, "Well Ryu, I guess Joe just bought you lunch," and then the door slams shut. 

  
***  
  
Ken sits in the dark. Where else?

He sits hanging his head, hugging his arms. _I can't keep doing this..._

The last six nights weigh him down, pressing in on his chest like heavy, jagged stones.

It's not that the... sex... is always bad. Sometimes it's good. Once or twice it's even been amazing. 

But... so empty. Nameless. Faceless. Empty screwing, and afterwards he feels so bleak.

This surely can't be what it feels like to Joe, or he wouldn't keep doing it. Maybe it's because Joe has more of a tomcat nature that he can get away with what _he_ does, but Ken... just isn't like that. He's tried it for the last six nights. He's pretty sure, by now. 

But he has to see it through even if it kills him. Ken can't help it, it's just the way he is, the way he has to be: he doesn't quit. He simply can't allow himself to fail. _Fall seven times, stand up eight,_ as the martial arts sensei drilled into him from way back, way back even before he met Joe. 

_One more time_. One more time and let that be an end to it, because he can't keep doing this faceless, nameless screwing anymore.

Of course, that's what he said to himself last night. And the night before that.

But it seems fitting, somehow, to make it seven, a full week. _Fall seven times._ The symbolism comforts him just a little, makes him feel a little less random, less like the universe is just screwing him over and doesn't care. 

It's getting to be about that time. To go and get it over with. He squares his shoulders; gets up from the couch, reaches out to the wall switch by the kitchen doorway to turn on the light. 

_Turn on the light,_ said one of the men. The one on Saturday, maybe. Or maybe it was Sunday. _Oh, yeah, you're hot. You're as hot as they said. Let me see all of you, pretty thing..._

_No._ He can't, just _can't_ do it. He can't stand to have another stranger touching him. Using him. While he lets it all happen. It's all so empty, so bleak... And afterwards, going home and running out all the hot water in the tank, trying to get clean again. There's no water hot enough for that, anyway. 

_Can't do it again._

But I have to...

He _has_ to... straighten out all this wrong thinking and get with the program. 

Still -- the thought of doing it again, with yet another man whose eyes he's never even looked into -- with whom he shares _nothing_ \-- no bond -- no trust -- 

It's unbearable -- because Ken has known all of those things, bond and trust made incandescent by passion in that one glorious and terrible moment, and he will never know that again -- not that, nor anything to compare with it, let alone blot it out. Only anonymous groping, and the fused smells of alcohol and cigarettes and sex --

_Jim_. His mind halts in its flinching spiral as he suddenly remembers Jim. Jim will be there, behind the bar, like he always is. 

Somehow the thought is calming, steadying. This last time, at least, Ken can wait until closing time, and go with someone -- kind of nice. Someone who doesn't treat him like a piece of meat.

Someone he can _connect_ with... at least a little... for a little while. 

It won't cure him of Joe. But Ken can tell himself he tried. He can at least say -- to himself -- that he _tried_. 

  
***  
  
As usual, Ken parks his bike behind the bar. He catches himself thinking 'as usual'. No, for the _last_ time. He might have gotten used to coming here, but he'll never get used to leaving...

When he walks in tonight, he does not hesitate but makes straight for the bar, moving around a knot of customers toward his favorite seat. But then as he reaches the bar he stops in dismay. 

Not only is 'his' seat taken by someone else -- the man behind the bar isn't Jim.

Ken stands, there, hesitating. Now what should he do? He is surprised at the depth of disappointment in seeing someone else there. 

The new bartender comes down to him, tosses down a coaster in anticipation of a drink order. "Hi there. What'll it be?"

"Um..." Ken hesitates. "Is... Jim not working tonight?"

"Nope," says the guy cheerfully, "he traded shifts with me for Saturday. Why, does he owe you money or something?"

"No," says Ken, startled. Ken is not a person to whom money is ever owed; quite the opposite. "I just... it's nice to see a friendly face on the other side of the bar..." Now what can he do? _Not another stranger. Not again._

A voice just behind him says, "How about a friendly face on _this_ side of the bar?"

Ken turns in astonishment to see Jim, smiling shyly.

It's -- strange -- what a relief it is to see him. Or maybe not so strange, for after all it was the thought of Jim alone that made Ken able to get himself here tonight. But the intensity of the relief is... strange...

"Hi," says Ken, and he smiles. A real, spontaneous smile. He has no control of it; he doesn't know what it looks like. 

Jim blinks, and to Ken's surprise a blush rises over the other man's face. 

"I -- got the night off," Jim says, somewhat awkwardly.

Ken nods. "Yes, I heard... I'm glad."

"You are...?"

"Yes. Now I get to buy _you_ a drink."

And now, Jim smiles, his dark eyes warm. Human. Looking into Ken's.

"I'd like that."

  
***  
  
After leaving the J, Joe has thoughts, serious thoughts of going back to the trailer and just passing out, sleeping till he can't anymore. He _needs_ sleep, so bad he can taste it on the back of his tongue. His _eyes_ are tired.

But there's always the dreams, and with that kind of thing going on Joe can't get any rest.

Not without medication.

He goes to a bar and starts drinking. Empty stomach, of course, so it hits good and hard. Just as at the J, it's a slow time, not many others here. But shortly after five, things pick up as they always do, people getting off work and coming in to forget about it. 

"Well, hey there, stranger..."

It's the angry girl. The one who lost her job. The one who turned into Ken while he was fucking her.

And she's got a friend. A girl friend.

Evidently Joe's performance a week or so ago is something the friend has heard about, because she looks him over with blushing but predatory interest.

Well well then. Two girls. That oughta wear him out.

The first girl (he never does get their names straight; they rhyme vaguely, like Mary and Terry, or something) seems to have gotten another job already. "I'm glad to see you again, Joe," she leans in so one breast presses against his arm. "Wanna take us out, show us a good time?" Implicit in the question, _we'll show **you** one._

"We _are_ out already, aren't we?" he points out, tipping up his glass to empty it. 

She leans into him again. "I mean _out_ out, silly... club hopping."

Oh, great. Still... two girls. Even a guy who does all right with girls doesn't get this kind of opportunity every week. 

It's one of those nights when everything is loud and confused and too bright. The friend in the back seat has a tape that she wants to play in his car stereo. "Whatever," says Joe. The first girl, riding shotgun, pops the tape in and turns it way up. 

Joe has had some coffee to sharpen his wits and now at the wheel of his car he feels, in his exhaustion, like all of his senses are now hyperawake. He doesn't complain at the volume of the music, just lets the noise and rhythm chug along -- it's more the other senses besides hearing. He can smell both girls' perfume, separate and distinct; the girl beside him is sort of musky, and the one behind him more flowery. He can smell...

"Hey," sharply, over the music, "don't smoke that in here."

"Aw, don't you want any...?"

"No. Shit, let me pull over up here if you've gotta do that. I get tested at work."

He pulls into the parking lot of an abandoned gas station. The girls get out and smoke a joint, leaning against the back of the G-2 and whispering things to each other that make them giggle. The giggling intensifies as they continue smoking. 

But all told, it's worth it as a detour. When they climb back into the car, they're all over him. And each other. Their clothes reek of smoke, but they soon come off. 

The confused, too-bright feeling is back again -- like tumbling around in a kaleidoscope. So many stimuli. But it's good. Because he can lose himself in it, for a little while. Forget Ken, forget everything... and free fall... as the windows cloud over with steam.

After a while, the second girl says, "I'm thirsty."

"Me too," says the first one, licking her lips. 

"I saw beer signs down at the corner, there's a bar there. Come on Joe, let's go in there for a drink..."

"This neighborhood's pretty seedy..." her friend worries, while she pulls on her panties. "What if it's a biker bar or something..."

"Aw, c'mon. Joe's big and strong. He'll protect us, won't you Joe? Come on, we all need a drink."

  
***  
  
"It's crowded this evening," says Ken, once he has brought back two bottles of beer. Jim really prefers other kinds of liquor, but he has learned his lesson about wasting time better spent with Ken, and beer is simplest. Also cheapest. He nods in thanks as Ken hands him a bottle. 

"Thursday is payday for a lot of guys," says Jim, who numbers among them. "It's almost as busy as a Friday." He shakes his head. Why are they talking about this? 

"There's nowhere to sit..." says Ken, looking around.

"Well, that's OK. Don't worry, _I_ won't ask you to dance, I promise."

Ken laughs. They just stand there, drinking and talking, a little ways away from the bar and well away from the dance 'floor'.

"Listen... Ken..." Jim's not used to drinking anymore. One beer is going to his head, giving him false courage. "I like you. I think... I _hope_ ," he corrects himself, "that you might like me."

Ken nods. "I do."

Oh, the _power_ Ken has in such simple things as a smile or a phrase. That smile just before had been like the warmth of the sun reflecting back onto Jim's face. Not full strength, no, he can tell that, but a glimpse all the same, a beam of light through the clouds. And this, now -- said so gravely, as though it is unthinkable that Ken might _ever_ lie -- let alone right now. Ken means it. _He likes me_. He can tell it's not something easily given. He can tell it's an honor.

Yet there's something there, a flicker following.

"But...?" Jim prompts gently.

Ken's face changes. A rueful smile. Yes, there is a 'but'.

"But... my life... it's complicated," Ken says helplessly. " _Really_ complicated." He shakes his head, eyes pleading. Power again. And beauty. _Please understand._

Jim puts his hand on Ken's shoulder. "So is mine. God knows, I have stories I don't want to tell. But Ken -- I don't want to be one of those -- forgive me, one of those _schmucks_ you keep going home with. I don't _want_ to use you tonight and then watch you leave with somebody else tomorrow -- _or_ never see you again at all. I want to _know_ you -- as much of you as I can, as much as you'll allow." He gazes into Ken's eyes, "I want to make you _smile_."

Ken has blushed hot at the mention of _schmucks_. But at this last, he draws in his breath --

Jim feels amazement, awe, _elation_ at having -- at _last_ \-- at the right moment, against all odds... _said the right thing._

Because Ken smiles, he _smiles_ , at him, for him. Because of him, and what he said. 

He _smiles._

In the next moment, there is a draft of cold night air as the door to the bar is opened. Jim can feel it on the side of his face. That's certainly not unusual, but the sound of bright, giggly female voices is. The handful of lesbians that sometimes come here are taciturn and can easily be mistaken for men themselves. 

Jim turns his head away from Ken, toward the door to look. There's a good-looking straight guy, with a girl on each arm.

It happens sometimes; some people don't know about the rainbow code of the neon beer signs, or else they confuse this place with the biker bar a block over behind the old gas station. This party appears to be of the former type -- lost, stumbling in, and just about to notice there's nothing but guys here. They'll turn around and march out momentarily. 

A sharp intake of breath next to Jim's ear. Ken's shoulder goes rigid under his hand.

Jim turns back toward Ken, who has turned toward the door. He is as pale as death. The whites are showing all around his eyes.

_Huh...?_

Jim turns back toward the door again.

He sees the guy, just realizing they're in the wrong bar, lay eyes on Ken -- and _freeze._

Freeze.

Time collides with gravity and shrieks to a halt, everything zeroed in on this instant. Everything stops. 

Everything.

In this moment of suspension, Jim knows, he knows by the way the shoulder he's touching has turned to stone, by the ghastly shade of white Ken's profile has turned, he _knows:_

It's him.

The former best friend. The one whose loss Ken has been grieving. For which he has been punishing himself. Here in the flesh.

Walking in _here_. With a girl on each arm. 

Now standing frozen, along with everything else. Grey-blue eyes wide, fixed upon Ken. Mouth open. _Shock._

He _didn't_ know.

Until now.

One heartbeat's-worth of time surges forward; one only. Enough for those wide eyes to flick from Ken's face, to Jim's hand on Ken's shoulder, then over to Jim's face... and _narrow._

Jim has the uncanny sensation of being centered in crosshairs. 

And in this moment, he knows another thing. 

Something Ken doesn't know. Something that perhaps the friend himself does not know. 

In the next heartbeat, Jim's hand falls away from Ken's shoulder.

Time lurches forward once more. Ken's friend seems to have lost all will to move, just stands there gaping at Ken even after everything else has resumed forward motion. His girls end up having to haul him out. "Joe," they call him. " _Joe_ , will you come _on_..."

The door slams shut behind them. 

The beer drops from Ken's nerveless hand. It does not shatter on the floor, but bounces and rolls, gurgling forth a yeasty puddle on the planks. Ken sways a little on his feet, looking pale and lost. 

The pain Jim had seen in his eyes that time, the time he'd said, _you look like you lost your best friend_ , had been _nothing_ compared to this. 

"Ken," says Jim. His voice is hoarse with the sudden knowledge of loss -- at the very moment, the very _instant_ he had _reached_ Ken, said that _right thing_ he'd been longing for. Jim sees, now, that it doesn't matter. The hand of Fate pushed the door open. The hand of Fate placed them all here to collide. If Jim _had_ been a schmuck like the other guys, they would have already left the bar to find someplace alone. But he is not. And they did not. So now...

Ken does not answer. He is shivering slightly, as though the cold air from the open door were still falling across him. 

" _Ken_ ," Jim says more urgently. Ken's going to run, that's obvious, his body language is tensing for sudden flight. "Listen to me... It's going to be all -- "

But before he can finish, Ken is gone. 

_Too late._

Too late to finish the sentence... too late even to forlornly wish Ken well. Too late for everything.

  
***  
  
The proverbial penny -- which has been hanging in midair in defiance of gravity, like Ken's body in zero G, like that bullet in the stasis cell -- has finally, _finally_ dropped.

_I'm willing..._

He swerves around a truck, still accelerating. 

"Joe, _slow down!_ "

_Can't._ He has thoughts to outrun. The truck's headlights are already fading, distant sparks in the rearview mirror. 

" _Please_ , Joe!"

_Please, Joe. More._

" _Please_ , Joe, _stop!_ "

_Shit!_ Can't go any _faster_ in civilian mode...

What the fuck is he going to _do_...

"JOE! STOP THE GODDAMN CAR AND LET US OUT BEFORE YOU KILL US!"

_What?_

The girls. Here in the car. Angry girl is screaming at him. The one in the backseat is crying about something. 

"STOP! AND LET US OUT!" The angry girl sounds scared now.

"Before you _kill_ us!" wails her friend.

He stops. And lets them out. 

He goes back to his trailer. It's too late now for bars, and anyway... He's been to enough bars just lately. -- _Fuck!_ He's out of beer. But he does have a little less than half a bottle of Wild Turkey. 

That'll do. It'll have to.

He sits outside, on the steps, knocking it back, glaring at the horizon. He's not far enough away from the city. It doesn't get dark enough at night...

What the hell -- what the hell did Ken think he was _doing_ \--

Joe can't seem to get drunk enough. It's like his brain has been awake too long and it's refusing to do anything else now. It's sloshing around inside his skull, but it won't go _out_. It won't stop _thinking_.

And just who the _fuck_ was that guy?

...that _guy_...

He stands up suddenly, longing to hit something -- or somebody. But he finds that, though his brain acts unaffected, his body doesn't. He staggers, and drops the bottle. 

It doesn't break. But as he fumbles to pick it up, the last of the bourbon spills out on the ground before he can right it.

Cursing, he flings the empty bottle out into the dark. Now there is a thin splashing crash of glass.

Well, great, and he'll be sure to step on it later. Probably _barefoot._

Now what? _Now_ what?

What the hell was Ken _doing_ in a place like that!

\-- _willing_ \--

It's like Joe's chest is going to explode. One of those aliens will come bursting out, all needle-teeth and acid goo.

Or maybe he'll just crawl right out of his own skin -- because there doesn't feel like there's room enough in it for him anymore.

_This isn't my business!_ he tries telling himself. _This has nothing to do with me._

He is pacing around and around in a figure-eight in front of his trailer. Eight, not infinity, because suddenly he stops.

_It has everything to do with me!_

Everything. Ken is doing this _because_ of Joe.

_To get even with me._

He nods to himself, _yes!_

Ken is a reckless idiot. Someone has to save him from himself. Knock some sense into him -- tell him to _stop_ being an idiot.

_Yes._ This is something Joe's brain, pickled in alcohol, can deal with. Even though it makes no sense. Something to _do!_ Something he can _fix._

  
***  
  
Ken hunches down on his bike, eyes streaming in the wind. Shame and humiliation ride with him. 

_Faster,_ they urge him, _faster._

He had thought it the worst possible thing, that moment in the locker room when Joe had looked at him like that. 

But the way he looked tonight is burned upon Ken's memory, flickering in front of his mind's eye in a lurid loop. 

Joe _staring_ at him, in horror and disgust... to find him in a place like that...

_End of the world._ That's how it feels. _End of everything._

_Faster_... Shame has its arms around his neck, snuggling up to his back. Humiliation bounds along effortlessly behind the speeding bike, slobbering and biting at his heels.

He can't ever look Joe in the _eye_ again! 

For _that_ time to be the last -- for that _look_ to be the last -- the last time their eyes ever meet! Right before Joe had turned and fled _that place --_

_What if I..._

The wind is very cold. His face has long gone numb. All of him is numb.

What is there for him now? Only the misery of working side by side with Joe... knowing that there is nothing for him in Joe's eyes... but revulsion. Nothing...

_what if I..._

_Closed my eyes..._

_What if I --_

Light suddenly blazes red through his closed lids. A scream of brakes, and then a hard blow that takes Ken's breath -- and everything -- away.

  
***  
  
The next thing Ken knows is that he's cold. 

Cold, and his head hurts.

The sudden stab of déjà vu makes him open his eyes with a gasp. _The cell -- !_

No.

There's dirt... grass... pebbles under his hands and face. Wide sky above him. He's outdoors. On the ground. 

_What happened..._

"Buddy! Holy shit! Buddy! You OK?"

Someone, thinks Ken in distracted confusion, is talking to someone named Buddy.

He sits up, carefully. The reflex of internal attention... He's scuffed up, bruised. But doesn't seem too badly injured. He looks around him, blinking. 

His bike is lying there... Twisted. Totalled. In a ditch.

But he's all right.

_I can't even do **that** right...?_

"Buddy!" Someone is shouting down at him from the road. 

_He means me?_ "What...?"

"Oh my God, buddy, I thought I'd-a killed you. Are you all right? Can you stand up? Shit. You need to go to a hospital -- ?"

Ken finds his wits -- some of them, at least. "No... I'm all right. Really..."

It takes some convincing, but the guy reluctantly puts the bike's twisted carcass in the back of his pickup and takes Ken home, instead of to an emergency room. He helps haul the bike's remains from the truck bed and carry it around to the back of the house. 

Then after being reassured again, the guy apologizes one last time and drives off. Ken goes into the house.

He doesn't turn on any lights.

  
***  
  
Joe, muttering to himself about 'crazy risks' in a brooding rehearsal of what he might say to Ken, is just turning onto the road down to Ken's house when he sees the taillights of someone else -- just leaving.

Someone else. Leaving.

Adrenaline surges through Joe all over again, clearing out the accumulated cobwebs of fatigue -- as though he has not been sleep deprived for more than a week. 

_Who the fuck! Who the fuck is that!_

His mind's eye shows him the guy in the bar -- with his hand on Ken's shoulder.

Son of a _bitch!_

He drives up toward Ken's house, _at_ Ken's house as though he intends to ram it, tires gouging the dust when he brakes at the last possible moment.

_Son of a bitch!_

He flings himself out of the Nissan, marching up to the door. With the precision of long practice he flips the key ring around to the key to Ken's front door, and shoves it in the lock --

It -- doesn't turn.

He tries it again. Double checks that he has the right key. Then he stares at it.

Then he tries it again. 

It _still_ doesn't turn.

A new lock.

Ken changed the fucking _locks_ \-- ?

Joe stands there, feeling poleaxed. Ken... changed the _locks! Why_ did -- 

Mind's eye shows him the guy again. _Touching._

_He thinks he's -- locking **me** out?_

Son of a fucking BITCH!

There is no point at which Joe makes a _decision_ to break down the door. He's just suddenly _doing_ it -- bellowing with rage -- _attacking_ the door -- wood splintering, a knob falling off to roll away.

"KEN!"

  
***  
  
Ken moves slowly in the dark. Not that he doesn't know where everything is. But why bother hurrying? Why bother with lights? What does it _matter_...

Everything has ended. How can Ken go on being what he has been? Without Joe's trust? Without his friendship, without anything but that _look_ forever and ever?

He -- can't do it.

But... where can he go, what can he do now? 

_Run away?_ He does turn a light on then, in the bedroom, and finds himself looking into the closet at the battered old suitcase that had once been his father's. 

He hauls it down, then sits down on the end of his bed to stare at it bleakly.

_I'm Gatchaman. How can I run away?_

But how can I stay?

He drags his gaze from the suitcase, to the dresser... then to the laundry hamper, one pair of socks short of overflowing. 

_Shit_. He doesn't even have any clean clothes... _and I can't take my civvies with me..._

He looks at his bracelet. Though his eyes feel dull and vague like the rest of him, its edges glare in hard focus against his retinas. Blue. Gold. Red. It is a greater weight than the chain -- whose imprint, still bruised into his back, is fading only slowly. 

Even if he left the bracelet here, its weight would still be on him -- along with the pale stripe it would leave against his tanned arm, like a negative bruise -- a 'white shadow' -- to go on reminding him. This is who he is. This is who he's been raised to be, tempered in the crucible of his training and his own innate desire for what is right.

That _other_ innate desire... well. There has never been anything he could do about that. 

He slumps, head in his hands. No matter what he does with others, the memories of Joe always remain, refusing to abate, refusing to be shoved aside. At the moment of the peak Joe would _be_ there, inside him, lips hot on his throat -- hands burning like brands -- the imprint of his slap glowing on Ken's cheek -- 

_I'm losing my mind._

Yes, surely so. His own actions since they came back have not been rational. Tonight -- on the road --

_I could have killed myself. I almost did._

He might have ended there. A pointless, untimely death, a concealed suicide. So much training wasted, and the team without a leader. 

And what additional shame -- to force some innocent stranger to participate in his suicide. The man in the pickup truck had almost been in tears of relief that Ken wasn't totalled like the bike had been. 

_Can't go. Can't stay._

Can't live like this.

So tired...

Then he hears the motor outside. He knows the sound of it so well.

_Oh, no..._

No. Not now... not _now_. Let Joe think he's not home. _Let him give up... and go away..._

Ken waits. Soon everything will be quiet again and he can just... Sit here... and fall into the silence...

Stomping. Key fumbling. The sound of Joe trying a key that won't fit is like hearing some animal's claws scrape uselessly at the door.

Then: a loud, thudding crash from the living room as the door is broken down. Joe's voice, enraged: "KEN!" 

_I should have known._

Well, there's little point pretending _now_ that he isn't home. 

"KEN!! GODDAMMIT, WHERE ARE YOU..."

Slowly, every step dragging with an excess of gravity, Ken gets up from the bed and goes toward the noise. If he doesn't... Joe will just come looking for him. Foolish to think he'd go away. Another symptom of Ken's wrong thinking.

Loud scraping and crunching noises. A little clumsy. _He's drunk._

Joe is taking another breath to bellow when Ken speaks, weary voice undercutting him.

"I'm here. What do you want?"

"What do you mean," growls Joe, "what do you MEAN what do I want?"

_Here we go_ , thinks Ken. _Here it comes,_ as Joe draws breath to shout. He closes his eyes.

The light flicks on. Joe finally found the switch.

A moment of haggard staring, and then the bellow: "WHO THE FUCK IS HE?"

Ken's eyes pop open again. 

"...what?"

"Was that him that left just now? Your boyfriend from the bar?"

Yes, there it is. _Not_ as harsh as Ken was expecting, but it still makes him flinch. And Joe's just getting started, after all.

"Did he do that?" Joe demands.

Ken turns away, longing to stop this before it gets worse. He goes back toward his bedroom, needing a whole door to put between them. 

But Joe is right behind him this time, panting, his hand on the door before Ken can get it shut. 

"Don't you do that. I'll break this one too."

Ken turns his head and tries to stare Joe down. The baleful glare from the blue-grey eyes has a sheen of desperation. 

"What's the matter with you?" he says softly. 

Joe is as defensive as though Ken had shouted. 

"What's the matter with ME? What's the matter with YOU? LOOK AT YOURSELF!"

"Joe," every syllable an effort, "go _home_..."

Joe, still gripping the door, has spotted the suitcase on the bed. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"Nowhere," says Ken bitterly, and he turns away to pick up the suitcase and put it back into the closet. 

Joe follows him into the room. 

"You'd better answer me."

"It's none of your business." Ken shuts the closet door and moves away from Joe, who blocks him.

"The fuck it isn't!"

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'? Don't try and confuse me..."

"When I _try_ to confuse you, Joe, I assure you, you'll be too confused to notice."

Joe bares his teeth. 

"All right. You don't wanna tell me who your _boyfriend_ is. Maybe I could find him and ask."

_He wouldn't._

"Joe -- " sharply, "don't be stupid! I would never bring -- _anyone_ back to my house, like that." He's always been such a boy scout compared to Joe, whose trailer makes him a man of no fixed address, but there are always stray girls' earrings in the bathroom. 

"Then who _did_ that to you? You better tell me, or I swear to _Christ_ I'll -- "

It has suddenly dawned on Ken what Joe is talking about. He must look like hell, after what happened out there on the road. "I got in an accident," he mutters. "On the bike. The guy gave me a lift home with it in the bed of his truck."

"Oh yeah -- I _bet_ he did." 

Joe's tone of voice is so nasty that Ken clenches his fists.

"Back off, Joe. I mean it. This has nothing to do with you."

"What the fuck! It has EVERYTHING to do with me!"

Ken laughs at him. It takes a great effort, and there's no mirth in it at all. But _'I bet he did'_ is still stinging. "What an ego! You think everything is about _you_ , you moron?"

Now Joe's fists are clenched. "Don't call _me_ a -- " he begins, but Ken cuts him off, shouting now:

"I'm not gay because of YOU!"

Silence.

The room has gone into stasis, brought on by that one word, and they stand staring at each other because neither one knows what the hell to do now.

Not quite perfect stasis. Joe is slowly turning red. 

"Don't get embarrassed _now_ ," says Ken, heart pounding in his temples, "you've got a lot more _names_ to call me, don't you?"

"...what...?"

"Why don't you go ahead and get it over with?"

"what are you..."

Ken curls his lip. "I know what you're thinking. Say it. Go on!" as Joe stares at him. "I know you want to! There's _queer_. Or if you don't like that one you could say -- _cocksucker_. -- _You_ know _that_ one's true," recklessly, feeling an ugly satisfaction when Joe flinches. " -- Or how about _faggot_ \-- you might as well say it out loud...!"

"Now WAIT a -- !" Joe's face is really red now. 

"Or maybe you'd rather say _'finocchio'_ ," Ken pronounces the Sicilian word carefully, watching Joe's response. But when the response comes, it's too swift to see.

"SHUT UP!" Joe suddenly has Ken by the front of his shirt, shaking him. _He's drunk, how did he move so fast...?_ "You think that's what I'm THINKING? You think that's what I want to SAY?"

Ken grasps Joe's wrists, but Joe isn't finished shouting -- or shaking him.

"That's what you THINK of me??" Joe pants, snarling, his face inches from Ken's. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?"

Ken doesn't know how to begin to answer that. Mutely he shakes his head. 

_But..._

Why then...

Joe shakes him again. "HUH?"

"I... don't..."

Joe's face is so close. Heart pounding, Ken blurts out, "Then -- why did you break my door down...?"

The grip on his shirt loosens slightly, though Joe looks no less outraged. "It was _locked_."

Joe logic. "OK," says Ken, "but why did you -- "

"You tell _me_ something," Joe interrupts him, abruptly letting go of Ken's shirt. Ken's hands fall back to his sides. 

"...what...?"

"What the hell were you doing in _that place_ , anyway..."

The weariness rises up in a wave and washes over Ken. How can Joe even _ask_ that? Isn't it _obvious?_

He's too tired for anything but the truth.

"Trying to get over you." 

  
***  
  
A moment of shocked silence -- but not stasis.

Joe breathes hard, swaying slightly on his feet. He feels as though his brain has suddenly leaked out all its fluid, its engine seizing up. 

_I... can't..._

...deal with this...

He turns away from Ken, from the wounded look on his face -- away and out of the room. His life is spinning out of control... 

Down the hall. Living room. The door, broken in -- cold air filling Ken's house -- screams _violation_. Yes, he _knows_ he did it himself, but it still looks like a burglar has smashed his way in... an unsettling change to a familiar landscape...

Dammit, he was just trying to...

_Trying to get over you._

He stops short.

Then he turns around, and goes back down the hall into Ken's room. 

"Ken..."

Ken is still standing there. He hasn't moved. His eyes are closed.

"...what do you _mean_..."

Ken is already shaking his head but Joe goes on, "What do you mean -- 'get over' me?"

"Joe..." Ken's voice is very low, like it's reaching him from a great distance. He doesn't open his eyes even when Joe grabs him by the shoulders. He just keeps shaking his head.

"Please. No more... Please, Joe, _no more_..."

Joe's eyes widen. His breath snags in his chest like a hook.

_More._

Please, Joe.

More...!

The rush of heat that accompanies the memory envelops him at once in silent, spontaneous combustion. 

Ken's face is very close to his, his eyes shut, lashes dark on his cheeks, brows drawn down in pain --

Grip tightening on Ken's shoulders, Joe yanks him close. Closer...

Ken's mouth under his -- lips parted -- gasping -- 

_I'm willing._

Ken jerks back, shoving at him. "Joe -- !"

_Always wanted you._

They slam into the closet door. Ken's hands get trapped between them this time as Joe presses in.

_Don't make me wait anymore._

Kisses him. Hard. Pressing against him... Ken is trembling... ah, and feel _that_ \-- ready, isn't he -- ! ... Joe rocks his hips into Ken's, catches a moan in his mouth. Yes, both ready, both in the grip of a heat they can't control. No chain, no stasis field, but bound and compelled just the same.

Ken has stopped pushing at his chest.

Joe pulls back out of the kiss and Ken has just enough time to gasp, "Joe -- what -- " before Joe is dragging him away from the closet and over to the bed. Ken's bed.

_I would never bring anyone back to my house like that_ , Ken had said.

_**Good.** This is **mine**._

He may have broken the door down, but that doesn't mean just _anybody_ can come waltzing in here --

"Joe!" 

_Please, Joe._

Vague tusslings with clothes. Last time, they were already naked. This time, baring Ken's body to his touch seems to take an agonizing eternity of heartbeats. Joe's own clothes prove unexpectedly frustrating when he goes to carelessly shuck them -- clinging to him like a skin he's trying to moult out of.

But then at last they are sliding together, nothing between them but the heat. Ken is kissing _him_ , now. Once the fire catches them both they burn so _brightly..._

There's some lotion or something there by the lamp. He grabs it. 

_Get me wet, 'cause I'm gonna fuck you. Understand?_

Ken's arms around him. Ken's legs around him. Ken's hand gripping him, guiding him --

_Do it..._

"oh _God -- !"_

_Ahhh!_ He pushes forward, shaking, biting at the side of Ken's neck.

"Joe..."

Out... _In_. God, oh God. _Yes_. Oh God yes.

"Joe -- " Ken is gripping his shoulders, shaking him. " _Joe_. Look at me..." Joe, panting, lifts his head slowly, opening his eyes only halfway. 

The vision beneath him is enough to stop his heart.

_Those eyes._ Gazing up at him, luminous, dazzlingly clear. That mouth, that beautiful mouth, slightly smiling -- parted, gasping as Joe moves inside him. Dark hair splayed around his face, a rumpled halo.

"Whatever happens," Ken whispers, "I love you."

_Love you._

Joe is too far gone to form words. With a hoarse cry he surges against and into Ken. Many blind heartbeats of hard sweet thrusting, drunk on the scent of Ken's skin, the sound of his cries.

So good. So hot, so tight. So beautiful when Ken comes, losing control. _Yes._

So fucking _beautiful_... that it drags Joe along with him, gasping and throbbing, clutching Ken's hips... squeezing his eyes shut against sudden tears at the intensity -- face pressed against Ken's neck. Pulsing. Drowned in pleasure.

_I've always loved you..._

  
***  
  
Ken wakes... and knows where he is.

There is no confusion, or displacement. He does not for a moment think he's back in the cell, though it's cold enough in here... No, Ken knows where he is, and he remembers _everything_ \-- Everything that happened.

And even if he did not, here is Exhibit A: Joe, naked, sleeping in his bed with one arm thrown over Ken. Exhibit B, his own bruised body glowing with deep inner heat... lingering echoes of pleasure. Real pleasure. Joe's touch.

_Oh gods. What have we done..._

Oh, he knows what they've done. And there's _no_ excuse this time. No cell, no chain -- no drugs, not counting alcohol. 

_He'll never forgive me for letting this happen... I could have stopped him. I could have..._

Gods. What can he do now?

When Joe wakes up... no, he can't bear the thought of it, can't bear to imagine the look Joe will turn on him this time. Not after... not after last night, that is too cruel...

Joe's body is so warm, pressed against Ken's back. Incredibly warm. Is it just that Ken's not used to sleeping with another person, or does Joe throw off an uncommon amount of heat... 

Both. Surely.

_I have to... get out of here..._

That's the last thing in the world he truly wants to do but what choice does he have?

_Where can I go...?_ It's the middle of the night. The couch is in the living room, right in front of the former front door. When Ken lifts his head out of the warm cocoon of blankets his breath actually steams in the air. He can see it in the moonlight slanting through the window, though the moon has gone past that part of the sky.

Very cold tonight. It's practically winter. But Joe's heat against his back is almost tropical...

No... he mustn't bask in it. He must get up.

_Get up..._ find his clothes (his face heats as he remembers how they were scattered) and go... Where? And how? His bike is a mechanical corpse, and that just leaves Joe's car. 

He _can't_ take Joe's car. But... but maybe he could _sleep_ in it -- just for a few hours, till dawn -- and then walk out to the road... 

Yes... get away from Joe before he realizes what has happened, and then...

Then... Ken doesn't know. But he'll have to figure that out then.

For now, he has to get out from under Joe. The rest is simple enough.

Joe is heavily asleep, breathing deep and even, his face half shoved into Ken's only pillow. His arm is slack and rather heavy, and Ken has to lift it partially so as to be able to slide out from underneath. 

Oh, it is _cold_ in here... 

Sitting up, Ken looks around... Where are his clothes... he didn't see where Joe flung them. There are jeans over there by the closet, in a crumpled heap; but whose...?

Behind him there is sudden sound and movement. An intake of breath through the nose; a rustle of blankets.

Before Ken can turn around, Joe's arm (almost glowing with heat, or so it feels against Ken's chilled skin) slides around his waist and hauls him backward -- back under the blankets, back up against Joe's chest.

Ken holds very still, eyes wide, scarcely breathing. Warmth soaks into his back, along with Joe's slow, strong heartbeat. Dreamy nuzzling at the back of Ken's neck.

_He's asleep_ , Ken reminds himself and his own wildly thudding heart. _He thinks I'm one of his girls --_

Joe mutters something into Ken's hair, then relaxes against him, breathing evenly, his arm tucked in tight around Ken.

Ken's eyes go round, then glossy. He shuts them, quick. 

_"I don't **want** you to get over me."_

"...Go to sleep."

Ken thinks he won't be _able_ to sleep now... He thinks he will lie here wide awake for the rest of the night, with incredulous fireworks exploding inside his chest -- but he's wrong. Within a few minutes he too is sleeping deeply, safe in this oasis of warmth, in the circle of Joe's arm.


End file.
